CHAPTER XX. PARTISAN OPPOSITION TO THE GOVERNMENT-KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE-THE DRAFT- MULE CHARGE-EVENTS IN EAST MISSIONARY RIDGE-OPERATIONS AGAINST ERAL MITCHEL. CHARLESTON-ROBERT W HILE the loyal people were rejoicing because of the great deliverance at Gettysburg, and the Government was preparing for a final and decisive struggle with its foes, leading politicians of the Peace-Faction, evidently in affiliation with members of the disloyal organization known as Knights of the Golden Circle, were using every means in their power to defeat the patriotic purposes of the National Administration, and to stir up the people of the free-labor States to engage in a counter-revolution. The association called Knights of the Golden Circle was organized, it is said, as early as 1835, by some of the leaders who were engaged in the nullification movements in South Carolina two or three years before. Its chief objects were the separation of the Union politically, at the line between the free-labor and slave-labor States; the seizure of some of the richest portions of Mexico and the Island of Cuba, and the establishment of an empire whose corner-stone should be Slavery. The bounds of that empire were within a circle, the centre of which was at Havana, in Cuba, with a radius of sixteen degrees of latitude and longitude, reaching northward to the Pennsylvania border and southward to the Isthmus of Darien and even beyond. It would include the West India Islands and those of the Caribbean Sea, with a large part of Eastern Mexico and the whole of Central America. The limits of this empire the projectors called "The Golden Circle," and the members of the association, "Knights of the Golden Circle," who formed the soul of all the "fillibustering" operations before the breaking out of the Civil War, from 1850 to 1857. When these failed, 1 their energies were put forth for the destruction of the Union. "Castles" or "lodges," with a secret ritual, were formed in various Southern States, and their membership included many active politicians north of the Ohio River, in 1863. These disloyal men in the northern States, countenanced by the unpatriotic Peace-Faction, became very vehement in their opposition to the Government when, in the summer of 1863, a draft or conscription to fill up the ranks of the army which had been authorized by Congress, was put into operation by the President. This act, the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, the arrest of seditious men, and other measures which the Government deemed necessary for the maintenance of the National authority, were denounced by the leaders of the party opposed to Mr. Lincoln's administration, as unconstitutional and outrageous. Instigated by raving political leaders, inflammatory speeches, and the daily utterances of the press that was in sympathy with the opponents of the draft, a mob, composed largely of the lower class of the Irish population in the city of New York, entered upon a fearful riot there early in July. It prevailed for almost three days. The immediate pretext for the disturbance was the alleged oppression of the draft. The riot was begun by destroying the telegraph wires extending out of the city. Then the rioters paraded some of the streets and forced citizens to join them; and after first uttering cries against the draft, they yelled, "Down with the Abolitionists! down. with the nigger! Hurrah for Jeff Davis!" The special objects of their wrath were the innocent colored people and their friends. Arson and plunder, maiming and murder, were their business and recreation. Men and women were clubbed to death in the streets, hung on lamp-posts or butchered in their houses. The infuriated rioters laid in ashes an asylum for colored orphan children; and the terrified inmates, who fled in every direction, were pursued, and some of the poor children were cruelly beaten and maimed. The colored people throughout the city were hunted and treated as if they were noxious wild beasts, and many fled to the country. Finally the police, aided by troops, suppressed. the insurrection in the city, but not until several hundred human lives had been lost, and property to the amount of at least $2,000,000 was destroyed. This riot seems to have been only an irregular manifestation of an organized outbreak in New York city simultaneously with a similar insurrection projected in some of the western cities. But the draft went on in spite of all opposition; and the Knights of the Golden Circle and the PeaceFaction were discomfited. The turn of affairs at Gettysburg made them more circumspect. They hesitated; and finally they postponed indefinitely CHAP. XX. DRAFT RIOT IN NEW YORK CITY. 1631 an attempt to execute their scheme. And six months after the terrible "three days of July "-13th, 14th and 15th-in the city of New York, when no colored person's life was considered safe there, a regiment of negro soldiers, raised and equipped by the Loyal League of that city, marched down Broadway-its great thoroughfare-for the field of battle, escorted by many of the leading citizens of the metropolis, and cheered by thousands who covered the sidewalks and filled windows and balconies. At about that time, the notorious guerrilla chief, John Morgan, made a famous raid through Kentucky, Southern Indiana and Ohio, entering Indiana from Kentucky, below Louisville, on the 8th of July, with about four thousand mounted men. This aid was intended as a signal for the uprising of the disloyal men in those States in favor of the Confederates. |